Discount Ladder
by
Markdown laddering for ecommerce teams: size each step against the margin still left in the SKU, then increase, decrease or hold rather than dropping another ten points on schedule.
Discount ladders usually run on a calendar. Ten percent, then twenty, then forty, each step arriving because the last one did not clear the stock fast enough. Two things go wrong. The steps are uniform across products with very different margins, so the same twenty percent is comfortable on one SKU and below cost on another. And nobody steps back up, even when a product starts selling again at the current price. This skill reads sell-through since the last step against the margin still in the SKU, and returns increase, decrease or hold per product, with the margin each step leaves.
What It Does
- Reads sell-through rate since the last discount step per SKU.
- Computes the contribution margin remaining at the current price.
- Sizes the next step against the margin floor rather than a fixed increment.
- Detects products selling well enough to step the discount back down.
- Projects weeks to clear at the current step and at the next one.
- Returns increase, decrease or hold per SKU with the margin at each step.
Use Cases
- Stop applying a uniform increment across products with different margins.
- Step a discount back down on a product that started moving again.
- Avoid the step that takes a SKU below its own cost floor.
- Clear a season on the shallowest ladder that still finishes in time.
Example Session
Which products need the next discount step this week, and how deep?
Eleven products are on the ladder. Four need a change, and one should step back up.
- SKU | Current step | Sell-through | Margin left | Weeks to clear | Action
- Linen dress | Minus 20% | 41/week | 24% | 5 | Hold
- Canvas jacket | Minus 20% | 9/week | 31% | 19 | Step to minus 30%
- Wool scarf | Minus 40% | 88/week | 6% | 2 | Step back to minus 30%
- Leather belt | Minus 30% | 12/week | 4% | 11 | Hold, at margin floor
The scarf is the one most ladders miss: it is clearing in two weeks at 40% off with 6% of margin left, which means the last step was unnecessary. Step it back to 30% and it still clears inside the season. The belt cannot go deeper without selling below cost, so it holds and moves to the clearance channel instead of taking another step.
Why This Beats Prompting It Yourself
A Fixed Increment vs A Margin Floor: The Hidden Risk
A generic prompt will suggest the next step on the ladder, and the next step is almost always another ten points. That increment takes no account of how much margin is left in each SKU, which varies enormously across a catalog, and it never suggests stepping back up. Products end up discounted below cost while others clear at a depth they never needed.
When You Still Need The Margin Left In The SKU
Every step down is margin you cannot recover, so each one should be the shallowest that still clears in time. This skill states 6% of margin remaining on a product clearing in two weeks, which is the case for stepping back up rather than down. It also refuses the step that would breach a SKU's own floor, and names the channel to use instead.
Known Limitations
Margin per step needs landed product cost per SKU, and without it the ladder runs on gross margin and labels every floor as approximate. Weeks to clear assumes demand at the current step continues, which holds within a season and breaks across a peak trading period. It plans the ladder and does not apply price changes in your store.
Install It
- Download the ZIP.
It is free and there is no account to create. - Unzip it into your agent's skills folder.
Claude Code reads ~/.claude/skills/, which is hidden by default: the command in the folder block opens it. Other agents scan their own directory, so drop the same folder there instead. - Ask your agent to use it.
Restart the agent if it was already running, then it picks the skill up with no config.
skills folder
Copy
~/.claude/skills/discount-ladder/
SKILL.md
references/floors.md
ladders/
# one ladder per run, per SKU
# macOS: create the folder and open it in Finder
mkdir -p ~/.claude/skills && open ~/.claude/skills
# Windows: paste in the Explorer address bar
%USERPROFILE%\.claude\skills\Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a markdown schedule?
A schedule applies the same increment to everything on a date. This sizes each step against the margin left in that specific SKU and the rate it is currently clearing, which means shallower steps on most products and no step at all on some. It also steps back up, which a schedule never does.
Which agents does the skill run in?
Any agent that supports the open SKILL.md format: Claude Code, Cursor, Codex CLI, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Manus, Grok and others load it unmodified. The format is portable, the location is not. Each agent scans its own skills directory, so you drop the same folder into whichever one yours uses. There is no config file to edit and no API key to provision.
Why would it ever reduce a discount?
Because a product clearing quickly at 40% off was probably going to clear at 30%, and the difference is margin you gave away for nothing. Stepping back up is the cheapest recovery in any markdown cycle and the one almost no process is set up to catch.
What does it need connected to work?
Landed product cost, current price and step history, plus units sold since the last step. Without landed cost it runs on gross margin, which still orders the ladder correctly but makes the floors approximate rather than exact.
What happens when a SKU hits its floor?
It holds and the output names an alternative: clearance channel, bundle, or write-off, depending on cover and cash. Taking another step below cost to clear faster is a decision someone should make deliberately, not one a ladder should apply automatically.
What is included with the skill?
The skill itself, the margin floor reference, the ladder template, and the clear-rate projections. It is free and security scanned. We re-publish the ZIP when the floor model changes, so download it again if your steps start looking wrong.
Every markdown step spends margin you cannot get back.
Polar defines contribution margin once, so the next step on the ladder is sized against what the SKU still earns at each price.
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